HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-0929.Gauntlett.07-03-01 Decision
Crown Employees
Grievance Settlement
Board
Suite 600
180 Dundas Sl. West
Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Z8
Tel. (416) 326-1388
Fax (416) 326-1396
Commission de
reglement des griefs
des employes de la
Couronne
Bureau 600
180, rue Dundas Ouest
Toronto (Ontario) M5G 1Z8
Tel. : (416) 326-1388
Telec. : (416) 326-1396
IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
Under
Nj
~
Ontario
GSB# 2006-0929
UNION# 2006-0546-0030
THE CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT
BETWEEN
BEFORE
FOR THE UNION
FOR THE EMPLOYER
TELECONFERENCE
Before
THE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT BOARD
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
(Gauntlett)
- and -
The Crown in Right of Ontario
(Mini stry of Finance)
Owen V. Gray
Gavin Leeb
Barrister and Solicitor
Michelle Dobranowski
Counsel
Ministry of Government Services
February 28,2007.
Union
Employer
Vice-Chair
2
Decision
[1] The grievance before me was filed on April 27, 2006. In it, the grievor alleges:
Statement of Grievance. Michelle Jeanes & Mariola Pachura unjustly discriminated
against me when they refused to re-new my contract.
This act is a violation of sections 3.1 of the collective agreement.
The relief sought is
Appointment to the RTO Administrative Support Clerk position in North York or
Mississauga.
I am told that the contract referred to was an unclassified contract, and that the
specific positions sought by way of remedy for the alleged discrimination are classified
positions that are currently occupied.
[2] In October 2006 the parties agreed that I would hear this grievance on Monday,
March 5, 2007. In early November 2006, employer counsel wrote to the union's
representative in this matter asking for particulars and disclosure of documents relied
upon. Having had no substantive response despite a series of follow.up telephone and
email messages and conversations with union representatives, on February 23, 2007
employer counsel asked that the Board schedule a telephone conference with me to deal
with her request for particulars and productions. On February 26, 2007, the union's
representative agreed to a telephone conference on February 28, 2007. On February 27,
2007 the union retained counsel to represent it in this matter.
[3] During the telephone conference union counsel made no objection to providing
employer counsel with written particulars of the facts on which the union intends to
rely and copies of any documents on which it may rely, on the terms in which I usually
frame such obligations, by the close of business Friday, March 2, 2007. I so directed
orally, and in what follows confirm that direction.
[4] I direct that the union provide the employer with full written particulars of the
allegations of fact on which it relies in this matter, together with copies of any
documents in its possession, custody or power or in the possession, custody or power of
the grievor on which the union may wish to rely in these proceedings. Without limiting
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the generality of the foregoing, the particulars provided shall include particulars of any
acts or omissions on which the union relies in these proceedings to demonstrate that
the employer's alleged refusal to renew the grievor's unclassified contract constituted
discrimination contrary to Article 3.1 of the collective agreement.
[5] With respect to each act or omission alleged, the union's particulars shall
indicate what was done or not done, when, where, by what means and by whom. Where
conduct attributed to the employer or the union, the particulars shall indicate who is
alleged to have so acted its behalf. Conclusory statements based on unparticularized
allegations of fact are not sufficient. The allegations of fact set out (exclusive of any
conclusory statements or argument) should be sufficiently comprehensive that it would
be unnecessary for the union to call any evidence if the employer were to admit that all
of those allegations of fact were true. It is not necessary for the union to include in its
particulars a description of the evidence by which it will seek to prove any of the
allegations of fact set out. It is not necessary for a union to identify in its particulars
any witness to an event in question, unless the presence of that individual is a material
fact on which the union relies.
[6] The union's particulars shall set out the remedies sought with respect to the
grIevance.
[7] The union's particulars and documents shall be delivered to employer counsel by
5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 2, 2007.
[8] If the union fails to produce a document or provide particulars of an allegation in
accordance with this order it may not introduce that document into evidence or tender
evidence about that allegation in these proceedings without leave.
[9] The provisions of this order do not preclude an application by either party for
further directions with respect to particulars or production of documents.
[10] In the course of the telephone conference it emerged that notice had not been
given to the incumbents of any of the positions that the grievor seeks by way of remedy
in this proceeding, not to anyone who may have made a competing claim to any of those
positions in other proceedings before the Board. I directed that the union forthwith give
appropriate notice of the grievor's claim in these proceedings to all such third parties.
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This direction was without prejudice to any claim by anyone entitled to such notice that
the notice actually given was too short or otherwise inadequate, nor does it reflect any
prejudgement of the question whether the grievor's claim to those positions can proceed
on March 5, 2007, or at all, if it transpires that someone entitled to timely and
otherwise adequate notice of the claim had not by then received it.
Dated at Toronto this 1st day of March, 2007.
~v
Owen V. Gray
Vice Chair